NEW YORK — In the Munich movie poster, he is the human face of vengeance. As undercover agent Avner, he sits slumped over with gun in hand, the weight of a fledgling nation resting on his shoulders, a man torn between duty and defeat.

Eric Bana keeps a low profile in his native Sydney.

By Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY

In person, Eric Bana projects none of Avner's angst and paranoia. He's a former stand-up comedian and sketch comedy performer who loved the hit The 40-Year-Old Virgin, laughs easily at himself and mocks the whole promotional process. He's just in from Sydney, where he rung in the new year at a friend's wedding with his wife, Rebecca. (Related item: More on Eric Bana)

"My favorite part of the interview is the 401 assumptions before you've even started speaking, based on what you're wearing, what you've chosen to eat, how the waiter looks at you," he says over salad and white wine at the Four Seasons restaurant. He mimics a reporter writing a story: "As his double-shot cappuccino arrives, his smile widens."

Today, Bana is dressed in a dark sweater, jeans and sneakers, a mustard-colored leather jacket draped over his shoulders, a day's worth of stubble on his face. Thanks to his wife's ministrations, he packed sweaters and a coat for his three-day trip to frigid Manhattan.

His amiable nature had little to do with why Spielberg handpicked him to headline the difficult, big-budget project. Despite critical kudos for the 2000 Aussie drama Chopper and high-profile turns as emotionally conflicted David Banner in 2003's Hulk and Brad Pitt's heroic enemy Hector in 2004's Greek saga Troy, Bana, 37, has not broken out at the level of, say, Russell Crowe or Hugh Jackman. He's ruggedly handsome and masculine, but perhaps because of imperfect teeth, an off-center nose and casually mussed hair, not cover-boy pretty. But going green did the trick with Spielberg.

"I took my kids to see Hulk the weekend it opened," Spielberg says. "I admired how this very strong leading-man character could become so instantly vulnerable. He wasn't afraid of crying. I could see his strength even before he became digital green guy. I knew going in that Avner was going to be divided. I needed someone who could be strong and unrelenting."

That's why Ang Lee cast the then-newcomer in Hulk. "We went to a lot of deep, psychological places. He has a very melancholy screen presence," Lee says. But "he's an extremely nice guy, very charming."

Though the movie has earned mixed reviews, critics have hailed Bana's performance as Avner, a Mossad agent who heads a group of operatives avenging the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics. One by one, Avner and his group eliminate those ostensibly involved with the killings. Yet each death exacts an ever-higher emotional toll.

The movie was expected to do well going into awards season, but at the Golden Globes, it's up only for best director and best screenplay.

Film historian Leonard Maltin says Bana "is not a personality actor. He's able to disappear into the parts he plays. In Munich, it's crucial that you relate to that character, because if you don't, there's no movie."

As bodies pile up, Avner wonders whether he's killing the right men and whether the sacrifice of being away from his wife and baby for months at a stretch is worth it.

As soon as he got the part, Bana started doing his homework. He read dozens of political and historical books about Middle East politics. Bana says he interviewed Mossad operatives and also met with Yuval Aviv, the man upon whom Avner is based. (Aviv's claims that he was involved in the manhunt have been questioned.)

And Bana, who speaks in a laid-back Aussie accent, worked on his speech patterns.

"It was so convincing," Spielberg says. "When he's undercover, he speaks in a flawless German accent. He would vacillate from that to his Israeli accent."

"I was still in shock that we actually made it. This project always felt to me like it was hinging on the 6 o'clock news."

Once he got to work, playing a morally upright assassin grappling with guilt took its toll.

"For many, many weeks after I finished, I would find myself doing many things I would never ordinarily do," he says. "Where I'd position myself in a room, what I'm aware of — my senses were just so heightened. If there was a crime in my vicinity, I'd be a great witness. Put it that way."

Spielberg, too, "was pretty obsessed" by the movie, Bana says. "There was just nothing going on except this film — nothing. I don't remember what scene it was, but I remember doing a take once. He came up to me and he grabbed me. He got really close to me, and he said, 'You're in the zone. I'm in the zone. We're in the zone.' That's really cool."

After work was a different story. "Making this movie caused us to have a couple of beers just to deaden some of the sting," Spielberg says.

When the shoot ended in September, Bana hopped on a flight to Sydney. Living 7,530 miles from Hollywood makes it harder to meet directors or audition for films.

"When I go on the plane to fly home, I'm literally capable of forgetting what I do for a job," he says. "That also comes about because I choose to take massive breaks between projects, and because I choose to do this ridiculous thing of keeping home, home."

Bana doesn't intend to have "a filmography of 100 films. What I'm most excited about is at the end of my career, being able to look on my shelf of DVDs and go, 'Wow.' I try to focus on that more and more. Does (the movie) stand up?"

When working, Bana has found it important to stay close to loved ones. "We all found shelter from the storm in different ways. Eric found it by having his children (Klaus, 6, and Sophia, 3) and his wife on set," Spielberg says.

"The fact he's so grounded in his personal life allows him to come to each character, as different as they might be, in an almost virginal way," says Curtis Hanson, who directs Bana in the fall gambling drama Lucky You. "He comes at them to immerse himself without dragging along his emotional baggage."

Bana will have little luggage when he starts his next movie, the small-budget Aussie migrant drama Romulus, My Father, co-starring German actress Franka Potente. "I can drive home on the weekends, which I'm still in shock about."

In Sydney, Bana takes his kids to school, barbecues with the family, follows his favorite Australian football team, the St. Kilda Football Club, and races cars. "That's my No. 1 focus outside of work, hobbywise. That's what I wanted to do as a kid, but I never had the money to pursue it as a career." The actor's interest in collecting classic cars was something he could share with Spielberg, who says they bonded over their hobby while filming.

Bana met his wife, Rebecca Gleeson, when she was a publicist at a local TV station where he worked. She's "a book freak," and she just gave Bana The Lovely Bones and The Kite Runner.

"Eight and a half years later, still going strong," he says. The two are done having children because "I think two is a good number."

If Bana sounds absurdly normal, that's because he is, say those who have worked with him. "He actually is that nice. It's sort of extraordinary," Hanson says. "He'd relate to the craft-services guy the same way as he'd relate to the cinematographer."

Adds Spielberg: "He's got all his priorities straight. He's one of the few actors who doesn't need to act to be happy. If he never acted another day in his life, he'd be a very happy man."